[David Rushworth]

Greetings from Leeds UK.
As I read it the original discussion was about the possabilitys for organic armour in the Viking era.
Regarding animal skin, you have three main specifications, rawhide, vegetable tan, and oil tan, and people often talk about the reletive merits of leather without realising these have very different properties. Rawhide is very stiff and tough, close to horn in its properties, and would and did make good scale and lameller armour, both of which were common on the steppe. I think the prevelance of arrow strikes in nomad warfare was a big factor in the popularity of these there.
Vegi tan leather is great for belts, scabbards and shield covers and such, and as a rigid suppliment to mail.
Oil tan, also called buff leather, and in its thinner versions buckskin or chamois. Buff coats, we need say little more about their use as armour in the 17thC, earlier references, I don't know about any specific mention of them. Buckskin is reffered to in the 15thC, as a cover over the top of a jack, and for arming hose.
Padded armour, layered cloth, or stuffed with fibre is specificaly described in detail in Byzantine manuals of the 9th and 10thc, and after the Crusades you definatly see it in the west, but earlier in Western Europe, there is where we get all the contention. Btw, all the early words for this stuff are derived from the word for "cotton".
Horn armour is known, the Romans describe the Sarmations as armoured in horn scales, and it was used in the west in the later 11th early 12thC as Knightery expanded faster than the armaments industry.
I have seen a photograph of bone/ivory armour, laced together slats, excavated from an ancient Inuit site.
Sorry to have gone on at length, but I couldn't say my piece any shorter and avoided ambiguity. The above is what I know, and can give references for. I hope this is usefull input for the original question.

[Nathan Beal]

[David Rushworth]

Greeting mister Beal, call me Dave ( I know I know, if you'r not English you won't get it) same for everyone else, I get wary when people call me mister Rushworth, it's a bit like hearing the word "kulture",( I reach for my.......).
One of those things, all of us who've been whacked while mail clad, would love an earlier reference for padded armour, but so far in the west, there aint none. I am a member of the Palace Company, Timothy Dawson's Byzantine group (reenactment period, not a comment on the politics) and the Kabadion, padded armour, is your basic armour. Now, where they got it from is another matter, but they were very influenced by their eastern foes.
Something people keep forgetting, historicaly it's not that cheap as armour. A 30 layer jack-wambais-haquaton.....takes as much material as 30 shirts-tunics. It's a wealthy man who has 30 shirts, and if you use old rags, it still takes a fair bit of getting together, even today. We got talking to a Co. of St. George member in Switzerland who had a 30 layer jack of hand woven linen, and he said it cost as much as a small second hand car!!

[Jason Hollman]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Odo_bayeux_tapestry.png

Here's one I've often wondered about. The rendition of Bishop Odo's armour is distinctly different from the way mail is represented throughout the rest of the embroidery (Despite the name it's NOT a Tapestry!) Now the embroidery was carried out some time after the actual event, probably by people who had not seen the actual battle so there is some doubt about the representation but it is one of the best examples of illustration we have from the period. I've seen someone attempt a garment along these lines made from boiled leather (It looked very silly but did offer sufficient protection to say it was a possible) and I've also seen a quilted gambeson garment made along these lines (Easier to wear but still very heavy and incedibly warm!)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tapisserie_agriculture.JPG

This illuastration from the same source would also suggest some form of quilted or scale garment. I've discounted the possibility metal scale or lamellar as a coat of this length enclosing the legs would be incredibly restrictive (and you'd have to be supernaturally strong to carry the weight) but could it be a quilted Gambeson type garment?

These are suppositions, I don't know of any preserved examples or primary source material from the period which confirm the existence or explain the construction of a quilted armour either as a primary armour or as some form of 'sub-dermalis' type padding worn beneath mail. I do know that wearing a padded garment under mail greatly enhances the protective value of the mail (I've done it enough times!) it also puts a great strain on the wearer (weight, heat and fluid loss due to perspiration) which again provides evidence that a 'professional' warrior wearing such equipment must have trained to do so in order to build the reserves of stamina required to fight strenuously for prolonged periods. 30 minutes on the green outside Durham Cathedral in July was nearly enough to hospitalise me and I'm reasonably fit by modern standards plus no one was actually trying to kill me (It just felt like they were!)

In answer to the original question: No, I have no actual surviving evidence of these items being used by the specific group known collectively as 'Vikings' during the approximate 300 years that we know as 'The Viking age'. However, there are examples both before and after the period in areas that the 'Vikings' were known to be trading/colonising/raiding thereby creating a possible cross over amongst some individuals. There are suggestions in writings and artworks of the period that some organic materials were being used but these are tantalising and difficult to prove or interpret.

[David Rushworth]

I have no problem with Bishop Odo's armour being a gambeson. The Normans by this time had contact with the Byzantines in Italy, as allies and enemies, and as a senior churchman Odo will almost certainly have been in Italy at some time previous. There are references to the effectiveness of the Byzantines layering of padding and metal, mail and lameller, particularly when fighting Normans.
Being on horse back is a great help with heavy and restrictive armour, the beast carries much of the weight and does all the legwork.

[Jason Hollman]

I agree that would be the logical assumption but, as I'm sure we're all aware, that's all it can be as we still have no physical remains of such a garment.

[Nat Lamb]

So, were all trees of the period of multiple hues and with interwoven branches? or just norman ones?

[Jason Hollman]

LOL!

That's the problem with art sources before the renaissance (and the arrival of 'realism'), imagery was often highly stylised. Unfortunately if we discount all of the art works as fanciful then we have to wipe out a great deal more of our already limited source material. I think everyone in this discussion so far would agree that the lack of primary source material is the main reason for a thread like this. We have no preserved example and we have no accurate written evidence of organic armours but we do have hints and images that suggest that there was some form of alternative/complimentary armour worn with or instead of mail.

Here's another example
http://www.three-brooks.info/images/medieval3.jpg

Weird tree, but a good rendering of a plough and check out the detail on the belt and strapend. Can we really discount this kind of evidence simply because the tree is rendered in an unrealistic fashion? (Discuss!)

[David Rushworth]

The "Bayuex Tapestry" portrays multi coloured horses, polychrome ships, and comic book mail, nonetheless we can recognise what is illustrated for what it is. It's a comic strip, and has the limitations, and the story telling ability of such.
Bishop Odo's armour is consistantly portrayed as something other than, and distinct from, mail. He is a wealthy magnate, and politicaly powerfull, able to afford the best, most advanced gear available. He carries a club instead of a sword because as a churchman he is forbidden to shed blood. Perhaps his use of a distinctive, lighter, armour is linked to that.
Re substitutes for mail, when Harald Godwinson was campaigning in Wales his forces were recorded as wearing light armour, not mail.
Again as regards written reference for the early use of cloth armour, regs of Byzantine Emperor Nikephoros Phokas in the later 10th cent. specify coats of coarse silk, padded with raw cotton "as thick as can be stitched", as the common armour for the infantry. These had been mentioned at the beginning of the century as minimum requirement.
However refer to earlier comment, these might be cheaper than metal armour, but still not that cheap. BTW the same regs give a descending order of materials acceptable for lameller, Iron, horn, and then rawhide.
But this is the Eastern Roman Empire, post crusades this would have been more common knowledge, pre that, perhaps for a returned Varangian, like the guy found in a Vik era grave in Norway, wearing knitted cotton socks, of a Coptic pattern from Egypt.

[Dan Howard]

[Jason Hollman]

That is a good point, the popular Norman flanged mace would split a head like hitting a water melon with a hammer! A Mace is definitely a symbol of authority (although the club or cudgel is still the weapon of last resort for the lowest of the low.) A Mace would also remain one of the most effective weapons against anyone no matter how good their armour, A Norman Mace would still be very effective against a man in full 15th C Milanese plate.

[Colt Reeves]

[David Rushworth]

Pardon me if I am in error, I thought this thread was about bone, leather and fabric armour in the Viking age. Clerics in battle, clubs, maces and symbols of rank are worthy of a whole thread in themselves. Don'tcherthink.

[Brawn Barber]

Cheers Dave,
I'd sure like to get an eyeball on that example of that Bone armour (the Inuit site) or any other such armour relevant to this thread. I've been entertaining the thought of putting together something like this for quite a while.

[Michael G.]

[David Rushworth]

Many thanks for the link, I would have been scratching my head over that one. I originaly came across the stuff in a book about excavations of Inuit remains at Barrow Point. Don't kill me if I'm wrong on detail.
I supose the relevance is that Vikings could have had contact with people wearing this stuff. If I was writing game rules I would include this as a possibility for a character, as a serious suggestion in one of the books I write and publish, no.

[Elling Polden]

There where no inuits on greenland when the norse settled there; they migrated there later.
A norseman, beeing used to metal armour, would probably scof at such improviced protective measures, and conduct a qucik field test to ceritfy it's dubvious use against metal weaponry.

Making armour from bone or leather can be done, but is not really cost efficient unless you do not have better options available.

[David Rushworth]

I have no particular axe to grind on this subject, having neither money nor reputation invested in the efficacy or otherwise of non metalic armour.
Buff leather, oil tanned elk or bovine hide was good enough to supplant metal during the 30years war, once they gave up on trying to be bulletproof.
Horn was good enough for many steppe nomads, and the Byzantines, not as good as metal, but worth having.
The real arguament is whether the Vikings used these, and the only answere I can make is that so far there is evidence that they could have, but none that they definatly did.

[Brawn Barber]

Elling: Agreed, probably not cost efficient unless you have plenty of whale bone lying about, however I do like a good challenge with the materials many others shun for whatever reason.

Dave: It is as I had suspected since there is not evidence of much, if any armour that the Vikings are attributed to have used, besides maybe the maille and helm. I had just been prodding to see if there were some obscure fact you were privy to

[Lafayette C Curtis]